Conspiracies: The Temptation Of Cultural Gnosticism

by on November 17, 2025 | 16 Comments

If you ever want to get the ear of a crowd just whisper these words: I have a secret. The crowd will come to order quickly and listen with rapt attention. It is almost as if we are wired to hear secrets. As children, perhaps the worst thing a sibling could say was “I have a secret” and then not tell you what it was. As often as not, that secret was either non-existent or inconsequential, yet, at the moment, the power of knowing something that only a select few knew was intoxicating.

A Brief History of Gnosticism

In the history of the church one of the earliest heretical movements capitalized on the power of secrets. They called themselves (and were called by their Christian opponents) Gnostics, from the Greek noun for knowledge (γνωσις). They claimed to have access to secret knowledge about who the real God was (hint: it is not the God of the Bible), about who the real Savior is, about the things the Scriptures did not discuss in detail (e.g., our Lord’s childhood), about Judas as the real hero of the story, about the evil of creation, about how Jesus’ is not truly human, and most of all about the degrees of knowledge to true knowledge.

With their extensive package of ostensible secret knowledge of the real goings on behind the scenes, the Gnostics were among the original conspiracy theorists. Anyone, they said, could see the obvious, the things that could be seen with the senses (but who trusts those?). The ones with the true insight, they boasted, are the ones who can explain what is happening behind the scenes—that is, those with the secret knowledge of what is really happening in the world.

The orthodox Christians battled the Gnostics for centuries. Many of the great works from the earliest orthodox Christians were written against the Gnostics. Though you might not see an overtly Gnostic congregation in your town today, versions of the Gnostic movement still exist. There are what we might call old-school Gnostics—those who still claim that the canonical scriptures were arbitrarily selected (they were not) in preference to the Gnostic gospels, the Gnostic Acts, the Gnostic epistles, and even the Gnostic Revelation.

The Gnostics divided the world into three groups:

  1. The Gnostics, who had the secret knowledge;
  2. The Christians, who had spiritual interest but who lacked the secret knowledge;
  3. The fleshly ones, who had no spiritual interest or knowledge at all.

The old school Gnostics still meet to study their texts and the movement has influential adherents in the academy, who continue to tout the Gnostic line (e.g., the superiority of the Gnostic texts over the canonical Scriptures). As it turns out real-world facts are quite enough to expose and defeat Gnostic secrets. The canonical gospels are decades older than their Gnostic competitors, which frequently set Jesus in the second century (the 100s), even though he lived almost a century earlier. The same pattern holds with the canonical Acts versus the various Gnostic imitators and so forth. Further, Gnostic imitators are easy to spot. Where Luke begins with real observable history, the Gnostic texts promise you secret insights right at the outset.

Evangelical Gnostics

There are other forms of Gnosticism. Some of Modern evangelicals trade in forms of Gnosticism. For example, some hyper-Dispensational groups claim to have secret knowledge about why parts of the New Testament, as they say, “are not for today.” In a weird parallel to the ancient Gnostics, they distinguish between those who are “spiritual Christians” and those who are “carnal Christians.” Some Pentecostals offer us the secret to getting health and wealth from God, secret knowledge about his providence before it happens, or secret knowledge about what you should do in this or that situation. Like the ancient Gnostics, Pentecostals openly distinguish between those who “have the gifts” and those who do not. A docetic Christology—that is, the heresy that Jesus only seemed to be human—is not hard to find among Modern evangelicals.

Cultural and Political Gnosticism

Another form of Gnosticism besets our religious, cultural, and political situation: conspiracy theories. Like the old-school Gnostics and their Modern evangelical counterparts, the conspiracy-theory Gnostics also claim to have secret knowledge, which only they have and like the ancient Gnostics, they pity those of us on the outside, who are blinded to the behind-the-scenes reality, which is where things are really being decided.

As applied to politics and culture, the political Gnostics claim that the world is not being run by the forces we see with our eyes (e.g., governors, legislatures, and judges) but by a hidden cabal of global elites. Of course, the Covid debacle has breathed new life and credibility to discredited conspiracy theories. Today thousands are convinced that the government, who relies upon them for tax revenue and without whom there would be no power and thus no point, is actively seeking to kill them. It seems to matter not at all that people who study meteorology and aerospace engineering have debunked claims about chemtrails. The more the experts explain why there is no such thing, the more it seems to reinforce the conviction that there must be such a thing. After all, if one denies the conspiracy, then that is just evidence that one must be in on it. Not only is government trying to kill everyone, so are the masterminds of our great social media platforms. Apparently, like the government, the tech elite do not actually need anyone to use their services nor an audience whom to sell to advertisers. This is how the world works for Gnostics. The seen world is merely an illusion.

Gnostic Anti-Semitism

A darker cultural Gnosticism has emerged in recent years and it has gone back to a Medieval canard: the Jews are behind everything, they are said to be all-powerful and in control of AI, international organizations, banking, entertainment, medicine, and education but somehow these omnipotent Jews were unable to see or prevent the attack of October 7, 2024. Those same Jews struggled to find and rescue Israeli hostages and to kill a sufficient number of Hamas terrorists to bring them to heel nor could they prevent the attack in Munich (1972) nor hundreds and maybe thousands of attacks by Palestinian terrorists on Israeli civilians. How is it that all-knowing and all-powerful Jews could not take care of an obviously small-time hood like Yassar Arafat? The Gnostic world of conspiracy theories is hermetically sealed against facts.

What is the evidence for the secret knowledge of Jewish conspiracies? It is myriad social media videos repeating unsubstantiated claims and ancient blood libels. That is really all there is to it. Apparently Benjamin Netanyahu is running the U. S. government like a puppet master but none of the powerful, well-funded papers of record, who would like nothing more to discredit him and see him put out of office, tried, convicted, and jailed have been able to discover and publish that secret.

Herein lies the power of Gnosticism: it is not in facts, truth, or things that can be verified through sense experience or actual history. When challenged, Gnostics retreat to the same fortress to they have always retreated: the claim to have a secret knowledge of a hidden reality that only the illuminati are able to see and understand. One cannot gain this knowledge by studying what can be seen. One must first make a faith commitment to the Gnostic system, that there is a secret world behind the world that we see, that what we see is really illusory and that their explanation and their teachers are the way to the true truth.

Of course, there is an element of truth in some of the Gnostic claims. Were there no truth at all in it, Gnosticism of all forms would have not have staying power. There are spiritual realities in the world (Eph 6:12; Col 1:16) and behind the world, but they are not hidden secrets dispensed by gurus. Their existence is revealed in the Word of God and there is a Jew behind the scenes who is in charge of all things but it is not a secret. His name is Jesus of Nazareth. He was arrested and tried by Jews (Matt 26:47–68), found innocent by Pilate (Luke 23:4), crucified by Roman soldiers (Mark 15:16–32), he died, and on the third day this Jew, God the Son incarnate, Jesus of Nazareth, rose from the dead (Mark 16:1–13). He was seen by his disciples and by five hundred others (1 Cor 15:6). Forty days later, in full view of his disciples, he ascended to the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:9–10) where he rules over all things in fulfillment of Psalms 16 and 110 (Acts 2:25–36). The Christian gospel of his obedience, death, resurrection, ascension, session, and impending return was preached openly. According the Apostles, Jesus reigns over all things (1 Cor 15:25) and when he returns, he “will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20).

The new Gnostics are gaining adherents and they will continue to do so. The only thing we can do is ask the sovereign God, who rules all things, to clear their minds of the conspiratorial clouds and to open their eyes to the reality that is before them. It is well, however, to be aware that there are Gnostics recruiting our children and grandchildren into their cults. They have convinced otherwise comfortable, middle-class young people that the future is hopeless, that they are victims of a secret cabal (about which only the Gnostics know), and that, unless they throw their lot in with the Gnostics, they will never be able to find a job, a spouse, or a house until the entire system is torn down to the studs, as they say. In Gnostic system, the sovereign God of the Bible is absent as are the doctrines of creation, providence, sin, grace, Christ, salvation, church, sacraments, and last things. The Gnostics are offering a competing theology, piety, and practice and it extracts a terrible price from ignorant, confused young people. It has led some of them to nihilism so that, going back to Charlie Manson, some of them have even taken to murder to try to hasten the collapse of the status quo.

Dear parent and grandparent, do you know with whom your child or grandchild is talking on Discord, 8chan, or Reddit? Do you know to what YouTube feeds your child or grandchild is subscribed? Perhaps, even as you are reading this essay, your child or grandchild is laughing at Nick Fuentes, who is laughing about and denying the holocaust?

We need not panic. Jesus reigns but we need also to be wise and to recognize the peddlers of Gnosticism when we see them and we must act accordingly. The ancient church taught against them and warned their people about them. They also refuted them so that those who had not been sucked into the Gnostic vortex might be protected. So we must do in our day. The Gnostic gospel of Thomas may not be as great a threat as it was in the second century, but the Gnostic gospel of Nick Fuentes, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owen, and their ilk certainly is a threat and we should at least be intelligent about what is afoot and online.

©R. Scott Clark. All Rights Reserved.

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    R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.

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16 comments

  1. “There is a Jew behind the scenes who is in charge of all things but it is not a secret. His name is Jesus of Nazareth.”

    This is a fantastic line. Thank you for writing this piece.

  3. Abusus non tollit usum/ Misuse does not remove use.
    Conspiracies are a fact of life and the word/concept is found in Scripture.
    That is not to say that all that passes for or is called a conspiracy actually is a conspiracy.
    IOW as the scholastics would say, Distinguish.

    Never mind that ‘conspiracy theorist’ is just one more from the grab bag of smears current in what passes for political discourse today, along with: racist, sexist, bigot, chauvinist, homo/transphobe, anti semite, nazi, fascist etc. .

    Regardless, today both the MAGA Right AND the TDS Left are bonkers and as bankrupt intellectually as the nation is financially. A pox on both their houses.

    I don’t know what that view makes somebody, but I doubt it has much to do for or against conspiracies per se.

    cordially,

    • Bob,

      As you say, the abuse of a thing doesn’t invalidate it. So, yes, the left has seized on “conspiracy theory” as a smear but you’ve dodged my point: the attraction of conspiracies as a lazy explanation for complex events. A good explanation has to account for the evidence and conspiracy theories don’t. They cheat. When presented with evidence (e.g., an explanation of what alleged chem trails really are), they duck it.

      If you look at the resources, you’ll see that I’ve accounted for the existence of actual conspiracies. No reasonable person denies their existence. Criminal conspiracy is a category in criminal law for a reason, because they happen but the idea that there is a small (usually Jewish) cabal running everything is Gnostic fantasy.

      In re that last, I notice that the president is going to sell F35s to the Saudis over the objection of Netanyahu. Apparently, he doesn’t run everything.

      I wouldn’t wave off concern about conspiracy theories since they are demonstrably getting people hurt and even killed. We had such a shooting in our area a few years back and there have been several other such incidents since.

      • [Sorry Scott, missed this.]

        Rather, the left/right UniParty has seized on the conspiracy theory smear because when the official explanations aren’t that good – and lately many times they are not – yeah, the lazy explanations proliferate and we can’t have that.

        As for the body count for (right wing) conspiracy theories – (because like white racism, that is the only kind there is) – they can’t hold a candle to the leftist prog Bolsheviks trying to run the table in our very own ongoing Cultural Revolution with the salt and pepper Antifa/Black Lies as the Red Guard/Brown Shirt foot soldiers and a “If you disagree with me, you are a NAZI and I can shoot you” mentality.

        But that’s open and it’s a conspiracy.
        Which makes it an open conspiracy .
        Which is, of course, why it’s NOT a conspiracy.

        • Bob,

          I don’t think anyone here is denying the actions of the far-leftist including acts of violence. Rather, we should be careful when asserting there is a conspiracy and make sure to gather and discern the evidence.

          Regardless of body count comparisons, political violence or terrorism is evil whether left or right.

      • Dr. Clark wrote: “In re that last, I notice that the president is going to sell F35s to the Saudis over the objection of Netanyahu. Apparently, he doesn’t run everything.”

        Good example.

        It is in the best interest of American foreign policy to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons. It is in the best interest of American foreign policy to keep Iran from portraying its fight as a righteous jihad of Muslims against the “Great Satan America” and against “Zionism.”

        Helping Israel and Saudia Arabia advances American foreign policy on both counts.

        The practical reality is that the Saudis have lots of money but not a lot of warrior ethos. Modern Israel and the modern Saudis may both claim a warrior heritage, but one needed American help to keep Saddam from continuing over the Kuwaiti border into the Saudi oil fields, and the other put planes in the air to destroy the weapons of its enemies. Helping the Saudi military by selling them weapons is more of a political statement than a practical one, though it certainly won’t hurt to remind bad actors in the Middle East that people with lots of money may buy things other than limousines with that money.

      • Tucker Carlson actually did an entire episode of his show to Chemtrails, them being a secret government program, etc. 😂😂😂

        You can’t make this stuff up!

  4. Dear PN, P.S. That stuff is not the coin of my realm; I don’t eat it for breakfast, though I do ruminate upon it; and and I don’t believe I am bonkers, hokey, loony, making a mockery of godliness. I do hope my overlap is not “more than massive.” Hyperbole, perhaps? Menckenesque dudgeon, perhaps?

  5. Dear PN, Perhaps I am excessively touchy, but I am distressed by the broad broom of your comments sweeping the Trump administration policies and Charlie Kirk into the same wastebasked as e.g. Carlson and others, whose convictions certainly seem far outside of the Word of God. In fact, I perceive that much of the policies of this administration remind me of the Norman Rockwell “normal” of five decades ago. Perhaps they seem so new, because the “normal” common sense of that era is such ancient history now. Notice I speak of policies, not style.

    • I find the current administrations immigration policies and charging for refugees, policies regarding the treatment and care of the poor, policies of how we interact with others outside our countries including their leaders, policies about science and the denial of what God has written regarding science, and policies regarding denying simple worker protections are just a few examples of how the policies of this current administration (largely nonbelievers as well) are about financial enrichment for some, and no love for neighbor, the poor, or the suffering. I also only speak of policies

  6. Dr. Clark, I’ve said this to you before and I’ll say it again: it is both infuriating and sadly pathetic just how susceptible so many conservative American Christians are to conspiracy theories. The QAnon/Christisn overlap was more than massive. The little lady in church telling you Dr. Fauci and Bill Gstes put microchips in the Covid vaccine so that George Soros and the Clintons can control you through the 5G towers. For many (very online) Christians this stuff is coin of the realm. The MAGA/Tucker Carlson/Charlie Kirk sorts of Christians literally eat this stuff for breakfast. And like you said ‘chemtrails’ the more bonkers, the more hokey, the more loony the MORE they are attractive to so many American Christians. Sort of makes a mockery of the supposed goal that believers are ones who are to out a great deal of emphasis and value on the notion of *discernment*, but just not, apparently for all the false teachers on Twitter.

    Separate question: what does Gnosticism have to do with the term ‘agnostic’?

    • Yes. We saw this in Canada with the Truckers Convoy and the distressingly wide support they received from reformed churches. Portraying Kirk as a martyr off the pulpit, in Canada, was disturbing. ‘Christianizing’ politics is a no go, out of step with what Jesus taught. But, debating this with MAGA supporters (and there are many in Canada) is a lesson in futility.

    • Paul,

      Re Gnostic and agnostic, the terms are formally related in that they are both related to the same root (γνωσις) word for knowledge. A Gnostic is someone who claims to have secret knowledge. An agnostic says that he does not know something. Typically people use it relative to the existence of God but it can be used for anything. If a student asks me a question and I don’t know the answer or haven’t made up my mind, I might answer “I’m agnostic,” which is to be distinguished from being an agnostic.

      • I did not realize the words Gnostic and Agnostic were so similar!

        P.S. Strange that the letter G in Gnostic is silent, but then the letter G is sounded out in Agnostic. English is a difficult but interesting language!

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